Why I Choose Landscape: Lily Bakratsa

Ambassador for Landscape and Green Plan It 2016 award winner Lily Bakratsa writes about her experience as a student mentor, reveals what she gained professionally from her volunteer work with Swanlea School in Whitechapel, East London, and explains the importance of promoting landscape education in school environments.

In August 2016 I received an email from the RHS promoting the Green Plan It scheme: a UK-wide competition on which a professional from the industry would be linked with a local school to design a garden project. As an Ambassador for Landscape, I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce the fundamentals of landscape architecture to students and signed up for the challenge.

A couple of weeks later I met my team from Swanlea School in Whitechapel: five Year 9 pupils, all aged thirteen, and their Design Technology (DT) teacher, Chris Nairn. They were all interested in architecture and design but had limited knowledge of horticulture and plants.

Together we formed ‘Team Swanleaf’, and the first decision was to design a garden for the community. All the pupils in the team were residents of Tower Hamlets and had little or no access to green space. Helping more east London residents to experience ‘what it feels like to have their very own garden’ was a topic they wanted to research.

We spent a morning discussing, writing down ideas and thinking of potential locations for our community garden. The suggestions ranged from choosing a place to enhance in the school playground to greening the entrances of buildings.

Students take part in a planting workshop at Swanlea School

© Luke Mcgregor

One student mentioned the balcony spaces in the adjacent social housing estate, where ‘families would normally store bikes and unused furniture’. Turning a storage place into a green space seemed like a challenge we were ready to take up. It would also offer an opportunity to engage closely with the predominantly Bengali community living on the estate.

‘Give everyone in Whitechapel a garden’: introducing the concept of public consultation

As a team, our first step was to approach the target audience – or, as we call them in the industry, the clients. We prepared a questionnaire, and the team visited every flat encouraging the residents to fill it in.

The questions asked how balconies were currently used, the residents’ needs, existing issues and the design potential. Seventy residents took part in the survey; all of them said that they would love their balcony to be turned into a green, cultivated spot. The main problems they identified were the expense, their limited space and difficulty of plant maintenance.

The team win first prize for Best concept and execution in the Green Plan It Awards 2016

© Luke Mcgregor

Focusing on problemsolving: A pragmatic approach to design

Design is about finding solutions to problems, and my aim as a mentor was to encourage the team to find answers to what the residents of the estate had initially identified as ‘problems’, namely; cost, limited balcony space and their ability to look after the plants.

When planning a garden, expense can quickly escalate: even a small balcony can turn into a unaffordable project for afamily on a low income. We did not have a specific budget in mind but we started thinking of alternative ways of limiting expenditure.

Upcycling and recycling old materials was an option that everyone welcomed: this would allow people to use objects they had in their own homes or could find around their neighbourhood for free. The group walked around the streets of Whitechapel taking note of what could be used for the balcony garden project: pallets, old drainpipes, old saucepans, tins and watering cans.

A selection of these unwanted items were painted and became containers in which to grow flowers and herbs in the garden. The pallets were painted in red and green paint, representing the colours of the Bangladesh flag, with gardening quotations written in Bengali, relating to the local community’s cultural context. Old unwanted cutlery became wind chimes that decorated the space.

Lily Bakratsa and FHA colleague Lucy Grevers work on the stand at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

© Luke Mcgregor

The team maximised the space on the balcony by using folding furniture and creating a storage space for the bikes or tools, which could also serve as a place to sit. They experimented with laser cutting and tested whether the flat-pack furniture could be easily assembled. To create the impression of a larger space, they decided to install mirrors on the one side of the balcony wall.

Low-maintenance planting was a key consideration. As all the members of the group were of Bengali origin, they were very keen on growing herbs that their families would normally use in their daily cooking. Onions, peppers, coriander, basil and oregano were among the species that featured in our planting list: these also did not require much maintenance.

Colourful plants were grown in old gutter pipes and line the balcony

© Luke Mcgregor

After a series of sketches, laser-cut models and lots of brainstorming, the final model of the balcony was assembled. The team invited five of the residents who had taken part in the initial survey/questionnaire to come to the school to test the design. They had an enthusiastic response to what they saw: a very well-organised balcony, with storage space for tools, furniture that was easy to fold up, space for hanging up washing and lots of herbs and colourful plants planted in old drainpipes and other containers around the three balcony walls. It was a success.

The Green Plan It Award: our moment of pride

In December 2016, our team presented the project to a panel of judges from the design industry and received the first prize for Best concept and execution. As a mentor, I was proud to see them win, because I had seen the progress they made in a relatively short period of time: starting with a limited knowledge of plants and not much interest in horticulture, they researched the plants that grow in Bangladesh, learnt about herbs they could grow themselves to use in everyday recipes and turned this school project into a celebration of their culture and their Bengali origins.

And the passion and enthusiasm of the team came across so vividly that I became really interested in Bengali cuisine, treating myself to a Bhapaa Aloo (Potatoes in coconut paste and mustard oil).

Our entry for the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

Our journey did not stop at the Green Plan It Award. Such was the enthusiasm and pride that everyone gained from this experience that the team was really eager to take it a step further. They saw this project as a chance to help the east London Bengali community gain access to a green space of their own, and wanted to build the project to scale.

The students researched Bangladeshi plants and learnt about herbs they could grow themselves.

© Luke Mcgregor

With some funding from the RHS, Swanlea School decided to enter the schools competition at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show later that year.

I was again on board as a mentor, and together with Chris Young (RHS) and Lucy Grevers (FHA), organised planting workshops and started propagating the herbs and plants we would need for the exhibition garden.

We had set up a mini glasshouse in the school grounds and the team looked after it during the week. Chris Nairn (Swanlea School) collected all the hard materials we would need to build up the garden, and with a team of about 16 people (including students) we all worked together towards the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.

The garden looked very colourful at the opening: such was the praise from the visitors and media that even Sophie, Countess of Wessex, stopped by to meet us. I still can’t stop thinking what a great achievement for a team of thirteen-year old students this was; from having little interest in plants to planting their very own garden for Hampton Court Palace Flower Show!

The importance of having a truly engaged school team on board

Participative design is a challenge in itself, mainly because as designers we are asked to take a different role and to act as facilitators, rather than as decisionmakers.

The project with Swanlea School looked as if it would be a success from the very beginning, because all the members of the team were eager to learn and ready to listen: this openminded approach and can-do attitude helped me a lot as a facilitator, both in exploring broad design opportunities together with the team and in taking the competition’s brief further.

The completed entry for the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

© Luke Mcgregor

But there was more to it than this. A significant part of the successful outcome was due to the involvement of the DT teacher at Swanlea, Chris Nairn, who himself found a purpose in the project and believed in it. He even integrated it into his school modules and encouraged the students to put all their design and software knowledge into action.

I would say, then, that it is essential that the mentor inspires both the team and the teacher, because ultimately they will be the ones who work together on the project during the week in the mentor’s absence.

What did I gain as a mentor from this experience? A journey to professional self-discovery

Having worked in participative design projects since 2007, with a variety of groups and audiences from prison inmates to groups of older people, I am convinced that there is always going to be a learning curve for the group moderators, regardless of how experienced they are. The beauty and the challenge of participative design lies exactly in the wide variety of projects – because all humans are different.

The most important gain from mentoring at Swanlea School was that the project itself inspired me to look into horticulture and plant science in more depth. Running the planting and propagation workshops with my team, along with Chris Young from the RHS, reflected a love I already had for plants, biology and gardening, but had not before had the chance to express.

As a landscape architect in the private sector I feel that the industry needs designers with a love and understanding of plants. I feel that the focus needs to shift from software design to the essence of our job, which is creating spaces that make the most of natural resources. Plants are our building blocks, and we should have an appreciation, understanding and knowledge of how they grow.

The Swanlea School team on their completed balcony

© Luke Mcgregor

How many of us, though, have the chance to access a garden as an opportunity for training?

My mentoring experience has shifted my professional focus to the essence of landscape architecture: a knowledge of horticulture, an understanding of human needs, a love for nature and an enthusiasm for the building process.

After a first degree in architecture and a Masters in landscape architecture I decided to rewind and return to college to gain all the experience that I feel is very much needed in the professional field, and I signed up for the Level 2 Professional Gardener course at Capel Manor College. It was a conscious decision to give up my free time and financial resources to do it, but I know that it will give me an advantage in the professional field and it will engage with my design background.

Can landscape architecture bring change? A project with a group of inmates in a youth detention centre

Landscape architecture was revealed to me at a very late stage of my life and after I had already started working as an architect, and this was because of a participative design project I ran with a group of inmates in a youth detention centre in Greece. This was a very important experience, because it showed me how crucial landscape is in shaping and designing the world around me.

The project lasted for a year, throughout which I planned workshops with the inmates in order to redesign the interior of the detention centre. I soon realised that the inmates had a love-hate relationship with the building: it took their freedom away, but at the same time it offered them a sense of belonging, since most of them had no families to care for.

This love-hate relationship was expressed through different forms of vandalism in the building, from breaking doors and windows to starting fires. All my workshops with them about redesigning the building failed miserably: the group could not care less about redesigning a building that they would later vandalise.

Surprisingly, things changed drastically when the focus of the project shifted from indoors to outdoors, to the courtyard of the detention centre. Out of the blue, everyone became interested in participating: they suggested ideas, they worked together, they shared stories about hiding and climbing on trees. They all got very excited about turning a concrete space into a green haven, where they could at last enjoy a sense of freedom.

Lily Batraska receives the Landscape Institute Volunteer of the Year Award

© Landscape Institute

The result of this was that a landscape project – similar to the Swanlea gardening project – opened a new chapter for a community within a detention centre: shaping new friendships between inmates, it formed a positive behavioural dynamic, an achievement which up to that point had been an unimaginable miracle in the detention centre setting.

The role of Landscape Ambassadors in promoting landscape education

My experience as an Ambassador for Landscape has offered me many opportunities to reflect on why our profession is not among the most popular fields of design. The salary and the hectic lifestyle that are part of the landscape design profession are often cited, but I feel there are more reasons, which lie deep in the roots of our urban childhoods, when landscape education was absent from the school curriculum.

Loving and understanding the way that nature works is not something that happens effortlessly in an urban environment. It needs training and input from experts in the field. The role of a Ambassador for Landscape is crucial in promoting landscape in the school environment: not in the form of a lecture or a PowerPoint presentation, but in the form of projects, workshops, games and activities similar to those we organised with Swanlea School during the Green Plan It challenge.

Landscape education is a seed that we need to plant early on in order to reap a future harvest. A teenager who appreciates the beauty of nature, who enjoys climbing trees, is the future adult who will fight to save this tree outside his apartment. In the future, he or she is the resident with whom we will be keen to work in a public consultation or a community workshop, because they will be able to understand the value of what we have chosen to do, regardless of whether they are a chef, a teacher or a banker.

The Landscape Institute would like to thank Lily for all her contribution and for her involvement as an Ambassador for Landscape.

You can find out more about the Ambassador for Landscape programme at https://www.landscapeinstitute. org/education/ambassador-for-landscape